Tag Archives: Viking

Firestarter arose from research Stephen King had been doing into psychic phenomena, specifically, pyrokinesis[1]. He read about spontaneous human combustion and other bizarre incidents. In one case that he has mentioned on several occasions, a boy started to burn while the family was at the beach. His father dunked him in the water, but he kept on burning and died from his injuries, with his father sustaining serious burns on his arms. King has admitted to a fascination with fire, referring back to one of his favorite characters, Trashcan Man from The Stand, who loves to start fires, the bigger the better. King wanted to explore what might happen to a person who had the ability to start fires with his or her mind and could control it.

Then he thought about people taking part in psychology experiments who unwittingly received drugs like LSD. He envisioned such a drug turning people telepathic and causing a genetic mutation that allowed the test subjects to pass this talent on like “the Wyeth people hand down artistic talent.” » Read more

The end of the 1970s saw a change in direction for Stephen King. He switched publishers and, for the first time, had a literary agent. He met Kirby McCauley at a publishing party in 1976, but didn’t sign up with him right away. When he and Doubleday reached an impasse on a contract for his next few books, despite internal support from Bill Thompson, he consulted McCauley, who suggested offering the books to NAL, his paperback publisher. NAL met his demands and sold the hardcover rights to Viking. The deal was big news, reported in Publishers Weekly[1].

His first book at Viking was a change of pace, too. King considers The Dead Zone to be science fiction, unlike the fantasy/horror of his previous books. The Stand was meant to be a “summing up” of what he’d done to date, and it was time to move on to something different. » Read more